Ending Iraq's political turmoil will take more than a leadership mini-summit, which is why the world should be prepared for a prolonged crisis, writes Salah Nasrawi After meeting in the Kurdish provincial capital of Erbil to discuss ways to solve Iraq's lingering political disputes last week, the country's leaders failed to reach agreement on how to oust Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who they blame for trying to consolidate power and marginalise other political blocs. Instead, the leaders said in a statement that there was a need to "dismantle the crisis", "strengthen the democratic process" and "provide better services" for Iraqis. No one would have expected the divided leaders to end the present deadlock in a single meeting, but their failure to send a stronger message to al-Maliki was yet another sign of Iraq's failing political system. The talks were hosted by Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan regional government, and included Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, former prime minister Iyad Allawi, leader of Iraq's Sunni-backed parliamentary bloc, top Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Sunni parliamentary speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi. Iraq has been mired in political stalemate since US forces withdrew from the country last December, pitting Al-Maliki's Shia-dominated government against Kurdish and Sunni rivals. The impasse has brought governmental and parliamentary work to a near standstill and threatens to push the divided nation to the brink of disintegration. In a statement, the leaders said that solutions to the crisis should be in line with the Erbil Agreement, a power-sharing deal which put Al-Maliki in power after inconclusive elections in 2010. The Iraqiya bloc won the most seats in the elections, but Al-Maliki formed the government after forging an alliance with other Shia blocs, giving him a 159-seat lead in Iraq's 325-seat parliament. Under the Erbil Agreement, the three blocs agreed to restrict the authority of the prime minister and increase power-sharing among Iraq's three main communities by setting up a policy-making council that would monitor the government. They also agreed to bolster the parliament's power, set up a federal court and reform the judiciary. The blocs agreed to review a controversial law that bans former members of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party from taking part in politics and to resume a national reconciliation process, including enacting a new oil and gas law that would guarantee equal distribution of resources. However, Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis say that nothing has been done since the agreement was reached nearly two years ago. The present crisis escalated after the Baghdad government issued a warrant for the arrest of the nation's highest-ranking Sunni official, Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi, on terrorism charges, and Al-Maliki sought to sack Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutleq, a senior member of the Iraqiya bloc, after he had called Al-Maliki a dictator worse than Saddam. Al-Hashemi fled to Kurdistan and later traveled to Qatar and Saudi Arabia before seeking refuge in Turkey. An Iraqi court has started his trial in absentia on charges of the murder of several people, including six judges. The Iraqi Kurds have increased pressure on Al-Maliki to implement their share of the Erbil Agreement, mainly having to do with Kurdish rights to exploit oil resources under their control and a bigger role in running the country's affairs. Barzani has launched a series of attacks on Al-Maliki, including charging him with moving towards dictatorship and aiming to build a strong army and air force that could be used to launch attacks on the Kurds. The Kurds have stopped making oil exports through Turkey, and Barzani has threatened to let Kurds vote to secede from Iraq if the government crisis has not been resolved by September. Where the Iraqi crisis will go after the Erbil meeting is not clear, and the leaders seemed to have stumbled into the mini-summit without a credible plan to save the country from slipping into chaos. While Kurdish media outlets have reported that the leaders gave Al-Maliki a 15-day ultimatum to deliver on the Erbil Agreement, they did not give details about the demands, suggesting only that they were about resolving outstanding disputes between Baghdad and Erbil, as well as further stabilising the security situation in the country. Much hope had been pinned on the national conference called by Talabani in January with a view to resolving the crisis. Al-Maliki's ruling alliance now says that the conference could convene again next week, but it has insisted that the Kurds and Sunnis make no preconditions. Whatever the truth of the present situation may be, the country now seems to be poised for a prolonged period of political instability, and some analysts believe that it could be moving into the abyss. Al-Maliki, entrenched behind the power of the state, its army and security forces and its enormous oil revenues, is benefiting from the sharp divisions inside the camps of his opponents, including his Shia allies, and he is not expected to make major compromises. The failure of the Erbil mini-summit will give him more reasons to believe that he can avoid the worst. Al-Sadr, who has attacked Al-Maliki as a "dictator" and criticised his "hunger for acclaim," has refused to commit himself to pushing him from power. The leader of the Iraqi Islamic Council, Ammar Al-Hakim, an arch-rival of Al-Maliki's for the Shia leadership, had also turned down an invitation to go to Erbil for the conference. Shia leaders may resent Al-Maliki's authoritarian tendencies, but they are bound by vested interests to protect the power their community has acquired after the collapse of the Sunni-led Saddam regime in the US-led invasion in 2003. Leaders of the Iraqiya Sunni bloc have recently showed signs of internal divisions, with many of the bloc's lawmakers breaking away and forming their own groups or joining others. Deputy Prime Minister Al-Mutleq also recently refused to put Al-Maliki's leadership to a vote of no confidence, and there have been reports that he has now mended fences with Al-Maliki. During a tour of several provinces this week, Al-Mutleq distanced himself from tactics used by leaders of the Allawi bloc and called for national unity. Even the Kurdish leaders seem not to be seeing eye- to-eye in the dispute with Baghdad. Some Kurds have seen Barzani's initiative as an attempt to weaken Talabani's position as president of the country, disregarding his plans for the national conference. Others are concerned that Barzani's political maneuverings, especially his threats of a referendum on Kurdish independence, are jeopardising the future of the Kurdistan region. Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis may be making common ground in their opposition to Al-Maliki's authoritarian rule, but forming a governing coalition that includes the Kurdish alliance and the Iraqiya bloc to drive out Al-Maliki is only a far-fetched possibility. This is all good news for Al-Maliki, who is using his opponents' weaknesses to consolidate his power further, putting them between the rock of their rhetoric and the hard reality of their support for Al-Maliki's government until the next elections in 2014. The only hope left for Al-Maliki's critics is that he will not be re-elected for a third term in office, something that is far from guaranteed given the political stability that Iraq has lost since the US-led invasion more than nine years ago.
